Wednesday, April 3, 2013

California redwood trees (Sequoia sempervirens) are some of the longest lived plants on the planet. This tree fell in a local storm in the 1930s and the cross cut is displayed at Joaquin Miller Park in the Oakland hills. The crack in the middle of this huge crosscut dates to 700 AD. The tree rings show when the Norman invasion of England occurred, Columbus sailed to the New World, and the Pilgrims landed in what is now Cape Cod Massachusetts. While almost all of the first-growth redwoods were chopped down for building projects in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Oakland still boasts the largest stand of second-growth redwoods in California.

Wow! After a long life of providing shade and shelter and oxygen to countless critters, even in its tragic death this tree still had gifts to give us. What a sense of historic perspective is offered by its rings. I remember a photo of myself as a tot of maybe three or four, posing by a giant fallen Sequoia whose rings had been annotated with little brass teardrop-shaped markers, showing the various historic events dating back over 2000 years that corresponded with its rings. Amazing! I know they're able to tell us a lot, but wouldn't it be something if they could speak to us in our language, telling us everything they've seen and the changes they've experienced? They'd probably give us plenty of warnings about our destructive natures, but I doubt most of us would listen.